SECTOR 4 Mention was made of ANN7 having broadcast images of the Glebelands residents, without blurring out their faces, at an event where a hostel attack took place in 2014. ANN7 was forced by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) to apologise to the community and to admit its gross negligence in the matter. It was also felt that the media sometimes portrayed what mattered most to them, with bias affecting fairness and accuracy. ‘One person dies in a middleclass neighbourhood and it’s reported, but seven people die in a township, like [what] happened in Mamelodi, and there were no reports. Afrikaans newspapers are particularly bad in this regard, their ideology comes through.’ Journalists were described in general as working ‘to protect the domain of the media owner and the elite – the means of production’. Journalists were also accused of generally not speaking to a wide enough variety of sources and relying too much on leaked information. ‘This does affect the audiences’ trust.’ ‘I tend to believe in the cock-up, not the conspiracy, theory. The media does fail in terms of fairness and accuracy at times because it is obviously working under severe economic constraints. We don’t have the staff, training courses, [or] even the sub-editors we used to have.’ Some publications were noted for having ‘no go’ areas, such as negative stories about China for Independent News & Media, which is co-owned by blackowned investment group Sekunjalo Media Consortium (55%), as well as the Government Employees Pension Fund through the Public Investment Corporation of South Africa (25%) and a Chinese media consortium (20%). Sekunjalo owned 20 national newspapers as well as the news website, Independent Online, and some print magazines. Commercial mainstream media was seen as being unable to afford to fund investigative journalism, which was sometimes paid for by NGOs. It was felt that, while there was a considerable focus on violence across the media, ‘the media did have a heart’ as shown by the outpouring of grief that followed the coverage of the September 2018 deaths of three firemen on duty in Johannesburg. Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 49 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2018 ✓✓ ✓✓ ✓✓✓ ✓ ✓✓✓ 4.3 (2013: 3.8; 2010: 3.0; 2008: 2.9; 2006: 2.8) ✓